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| Atsumi Yoshikubo |
The Northern Lights are a natural phenomenon that is a wonder to behold, and one of the best places to see them is in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. Yellowknife attracts a large number of tourists during the winter season, who are drawn to catch a glimpse of the beautiful lights.
Japanese tourists constitute a large number of the people visiting Yellowknife to see the Northern Lights. Estimated roughly 20% of the tourists coming to Yellowknife are from Japan. One such tourist was Atsumi Yoshikubo, a licenced psychiatrist who, in October of 2014 decided to visit Yellowknife to see the Northern Lights.
Atsumi's visit to Yellowknife was strange when compared to other Japanese tourists. Most of the tourists stuck to an organized tour, but Atsumi did not because she came at the wrong time of year to see the Lights and all the businesses offering tours had shut down operations till the winter season.
This didn't seem to sway Atsumi's determination to see the lights. Dressed in a bright pink parka with matching hat and gloves, she left her hotel and walked into the bush to see the lights, never to be seen alive again.
When she didn't check out of her hotel at the check out time and she missed her flight back to Japan, people started to worry something might have happened to her.
It was October 22 when RCMP began an intense search of the area, it was cold out and it would get colder in the coming days with the average winter temp in Yellowknife at -26C (-15F). Even dressed as she was, she wasn't prepared for survival outdoors in this temperature or terrain.
By November 4, RCMP had called off the search. They said that the information they found in her hotel room, as well as information given to them by Japanese Law Enforcement during their investigation back home in Japan, lead them to believe that Atsumi came to Yellowknife intending to go into the wilderness, and dying there. They also claimed that Atsumi took steps to avoid detection, but would not give any specifics.
Things don't really make a lot of sense once you look a little harder at the situation. Atsumi seemed happy to everyone that interacted with her, and security tapes show her smiling and happy at every instance. If she intended to commit suicide in the Canadian Wilderness, why did she buy a return ticket to Japan? Her brother said that he had been told by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Atsumi had written a note stating her intention to commit suicide in Yellowknife, but he admitted that he was never shown the note and doubted that was her intent due to the souvenirs she had purchased and noted her return plane ticket.
The search effort had a profound effect on the people of Yellowknife. In addition to helping search for the missing woman, they also set up a registry for people to sign and write well wishes to Atsumi's family back in Japan.
Jessica Riehl, a retired RCMP officer, was particularly haunted by the missing woman. Jessica had seen Atsumi walking on the side of the road on the day she went missing and had contemplated stopping and asking if she needed help, but she decided that it wasn't necessary. Jessica had noted that although it was cold, Atsumi wasn't dressed inappropriately for the temperature. Her pink parka went down to her knees and she had warm gloves and a hat on. Jessica said she wonders how things would have been different if she had decided to stop and give Atsumi a ride that day.
Although locals continued to search even after the official search had ended, they would not discover Atsumi. At least not till September of 2015, when a hiker stumbled upon a pink parka next to some human remains a few kilometers out of town. Although the parka was confirmed to be Atsumi's, it wouldn't be till 2016 when they were able to positively identify the remains as Atsumi's. There wasn't much more than bone fragments left and Law Enforcement was unable to determine the cause of death.
Many different things could have happened to Atsumi. Did she run into a bear? Some of the locals feared that was the case when they were searching. Was she struck by a motorist? Did someone pick her up and murder her? Or did she, in fact, kill herself in the wilderness of northern Canada?
Unfortunately, we probably will never know for sure exactly what happened to Atsumi because there just isn't enough evidence pointing to one conclusion or another. The only things we can say for sure is that Atsumi Yoshikubo came to Canada and traveled to Yellowknife, and for whatever reason, died there.
For now, all we can do is guess.
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